Marx’s Theory of Crisis

The University and the Secular Crisis

“…(Hall 2014a: 825) In the secular crisis, there is increasingly limited autonomy for the academic labourer If we conceive teaching and learning as the expenditure of student and teacher labour power in the production of the knowledge commodity, we begin to recognise that the exchange relation between teacher and student, where each consumes the labour power of the other, is a productive relation, too and not simply one where knowledge is being distributed to consumers in a market for higher education. (Winn 2014b: 10) Thus, the idea of the University is repositioned against the systemic need of capital as the automatic subject to reproduce itself and to overcome barriers to accumulation and expansion (Clarke 1994;Postone 1996). The current phase of HE restructuring is an attempt by finance and commercial capital to synchronise the productivity of academia with their own circuits, in order to overcome the barriers imposed by the secular crisis.…”

“…In overcoming crises, Clarke (1994) argued that capital needs to create the conditions for renewed surplus value production through the control of labour power and the means of production in appropriate proportions. Thus, labour productivity and the ability to get educational commodities to market more efficiently, or turning those commodities over in the market more quickly, are critical (Lapavitsas 2010).…”

“…By creating an HE market, competition between providers for surplus value compels intensification of the social forces of production. In effect the amount of fixed capital or technology set to work by each academic labourer rises and there is a reduction in labour costs because more work is done by machines (Basu and Vasudevan 2011;Clarke 1994). This is a rising organic composition of capital.…”

The Structural Contradictions and Constraints on Corporate Social Responsibility: Challenges for Corporate Social Irresponsibility

“…Crisis tendencies in capitalist development are many-fold. They include the agglomeration of capital such that it is hoarded and can no longer find profitable investment opportunities (over-accumulation crises) (Marx 1867:762-94;Marx 1894: 359-68, Ch13), the extension of workplace discipline to such an extent that workers are no longer able to purchase final consumer goods (under-consumption crises) (Baran et al 1966;Luxemburg 2003) or to regenerate their labour power on a daily or inter-generational basis (reproduction crises) (Gill 2003) and problems in the sequence of demand for goods between different parts of the economy such that inventories build up, credit markets seize up or cash-flow problems emerge (disproportionality) (Clarke 1990;Clarke 1994). To these might be added a further category of crisis tendencies associated with negative environmental externalities and resource depletion (ecological and raw materials crises).…”

A natureza das crises nos sistemas socioeconómicos capitalistas

“…O termo foi, pela primeira vez, usado para emoldurar a queda na produção de riqueza conjugada com o aumento do desemprego e dos preços, que marcou o período de crise entre 1973 e 1975 (Tabb, 2010). A estagflação é um processo de eclosão de crises contrário à abordagem Keynesiana, pelo que assenta a explicação na retração do consumo (Clarke, 1993).…”